Southeast

Giants 101 provides 24/7 obsessive sports coverage of the New York Giants as a part of Sports Media 101. For news,
op/ed, game reviews, team updates and even rumors you will find all of it on Giants 101. Have an opinion - join
the discussion and drop a comment. If it's about the Giants, it's on Giants 101.

“I had an idea of what they run and what they like to do in situations,” Blackburn told the Charlotte Observer. “We had a great game plan going in. I’ve been sharing all the information all week. Guys, all of us, linebackers were out there knowing what to do; (defensive backs) knew what kind of routes they were going to get off the route combinations."

Blackburn, who had taken a grand total of zero defensive snaps in the Panthers' first two games, played a pivotal role in Sunday's contest. Not only did he see time on the field, but led the charge emotionally for his team as they also faced, but ultimately avoided, an 0-3 hole.

“It makes for a big difference when you can play the game at that speed. We were able to play fast because we were aware of what they were going to do," he added.

Panthers head coach Ron Rivera was not shy about crediting Blackburn, either. He openly admitted that Blackburn's knowledge of the Giants' system helped them on both defense and special teams.

“This was one of those things when you have a guy who knows the other team and you sit there and you listen to him when he is watching tape, before the play even happens, he calls the play out,” Rivera said. “You go, ‘He has a grasp of it.’ We saw it in practice. He was focused, he was excited and he brought a lot of energy.”

Luckily for the Giants, the Kansas City Chiefs employ none of their former players. However, on the downside of things, they do employ head coach Andy Reid, who knows Big Blue about as well as anyone.

Precisely. Are the coaches so invested in the scripted plays that they can’t make substantial adjustments? As soon as they knew Blackburn and Hixon signed with the Panthers they should have started making adjustments to be practiced that week. They didn’t, obviously. So the Panthers might as well have been in the huddles. They knew they had to make adjustments, and just decided to forget it.

Yeah, frankly, the guys you DON’T want to be facing are teams that have your former middle linebackers and backup quarterbacks. Those guys know what you do, when you want to do it, and how you plan to do it.

As upset as I am with that game, I’m happy for Chase. Really good guy. Wish we had him now.

The coaches are never wrong. The players just didn’t execute on their perfect game plan. Change audibles? Use different route trees out of formations that Blackburn knows? Why? If only they’d executed it would have been just fine.

it makes you wonder what the coaches are thinking in terms of player evaluation we all know and knew that Chase was and is forever athletically challenged at this level and yet we released him in favor of Herzlich brought in a couple of other cast offs and draft busts and here we sit

I’d say the same about Bradshaw except that the guy always had broken feet and despite his toughness was any given play away from missing games due to injury I really thought with Wilson and Andre Brown we were going to have a dynamic running game the loss of Brown was huge Not sure that he could do much if any better than Wilson with this line, but I do think he’d provide more toughness (quite a statement about a player apparently made of glass), better blocking and better power running

It was just one big mess of not being able to block, not executing plays, and the other team happening to know what you were going to do. Think of all the words you could use to describe the coaching/game plan and they will be words you don’t want associated with a coaching staff. Vanilla. Unimaginative. Boring. Predictable. This team looked like a junior varsity team out there. The blocking was horrible, every thing was predictable, and the play was sloppy. It was like the other team was playing in fast forward and the Giants just looked flat out confused. Do I hate Chase Blackburn for doing what he did? Of course not. He isn’t part of this team now and what he did was fair and square. If your coaching staff is too naive to think a player would do that, and in turn change up the game plan a bit, then they deserve to lose. It’s called being out coached in every facet of the game.

to tell the truth, no team needs a former player of ours to know what we are going to do the problem with the offense is that all we do is dive or off-tackle or shotgun draw in the run game, and long pass in the passing game the teams that give eli fits are the ones that play soft and deep, allow anything and everything underneath because those throws aren’t in our playbook

if the team can throw a serious pass rush in on top of that then what you get is what you got last Sunday

That may be true….but the worst team of the 3 we’ve played just gave us the worst beating. No doubt Blackburn (who should still be a Giant anyway, considering what we replaced him with) gave them a huge advantage. Without him we still lose, but we don’t almost get our QB killed and look utterly foolish in the process.

Other than the broncos, saints, and probably packers, what teams on the boys schedule wont they be favored against? I don’t see one (bears will be tough). I really don’t see how the cowboys don’t win 9 games this year.

Let me throw some fuel on the fire in regards to the coaching staff. Things like this with Blackburn in terms of tipping off the plays or worse the plays are simplistic in nature have been rumoured for years. Whether its the Eagles domination on defense at times, the Skins calling out our plays on the goaline or the public rift with Tiki Barber n TC. As I recall that rift began post the first playoff loss against Carolina. Barber made his feelings public that are gameplan was too basic and predictable, especially on film breakdown. I’m not debating whether that was right or wrong to go public just that its been going on for awhile. IMO TC and company are “old School”; we are going to inflict our will on the opposition. You may know whats coming but we dont care, our will is stronger and we will still win the battle. Thats ok when you have superior talent and a group of players that play every game with extreme passion and fire. When you are out-gunned or come out flat emotionally this old school philosphy really looks bad. I have a long piece at home that I will post reviewing the annual games each year during TC’s reign where the team was either outclassed in the talent department or came out flat and listless. In every case we were blownout or just laid down.This past weeks game versus Carolina is a classic example but you will be shocked how common those have been over the years.